Perfect Method
by Consolidate Means
Summary: When a young man living in Gotham is given the powers of the Gamer, he will claw his way out of the miserable life that was given to him. If he has to steal a thing or two to achieve the perfect peaceful life he wants, well then it must be fate that he is shaping up to be a great thief. OC main character.
1. The Gamer

**Disclaimer: I don't own DC Comics.**

**Chapter One: The Gamer**

* * *

Routine had a way of making even the weirdest and uncomfortable things seem normal, one could get used to many things if they happened frequently enough. The human mind was adaptive, it was likely its most powerful aspect. Which is why Damien was no longer perturbed to wake up to the loud rumble coming from his ceiling anymore, the excessive noise would start around 6 AM without fail every day. It had gotten to the point where he could trust it to be his alarm clock for waking up for school, it was certainly louder than his old cellphone.

The upstair neighbors would start their daily lives with loud sex, their bedframe dragging itself across their floor was the thing that Damien had been uncomfortable hearing when he and his mom had moved in a few years back. Now it was just a thing that happened, just like the sun would rise in the morning. He was just glad that their voices didn't carry through the thin walls.

His daily routine was far more normal after that: brushing his teeth, placing frozen waffles in the toaster for his breakfast, a quick shower, and putting on his clothes for school. Not bothering to say goodbye to his mother, who would not wake up for another few hours, he walked out of the two-bedroom apartment.

Damien White was remarkably unremarkable, he had nothing about him that was special, and he had nothing about him that was weird. He was just a teen of average height and built, his black hair had a sharp contrast with his white skin, and he wore blue jeans with a marron long-sleeve shirt. His looks were neither bad nor good, a perfect example of normal.

Making sure to avoid eye-contact with the local crackheads, who laid lazily on the hallway, he began to make his way down the old apartment complex. Reaching the lobby, he passed by the mailboxes which were mainly filled with overdue bills and eviction notices. It was comforting for him to think that it wasn't only him who was in financial trouble. It was a cynical thought, but misery loves company, it was a rule of the world; certainly, nothing he could do about it.

Damien might have looked normal, but within he held an iron will, it manifested in his dedication to his studies. He studied hard every day in order to achieve his status of number one in terms of GPA, even beating out freaks of nature like Barbara Gordon who was a natural prodigy.

It wasn't like Damien liked spending his free time in the library, but it was done to escape poverty. He needed a good-paying job if he wanted to move to greener pastures, money would certainly not fall on his lap if he waited around for it. He did not wish to end up like his deadbeat father who abandoned his mother when he got her pregnant, not be like his mother who was only on the road to death.

She worked a minimum wage job that earned enough to pay for some food and her a little to support her drug addiction. He didn't blame her though, she did not have any choice at this point. She was stuck in the cycle of poverty and it was not something that she could break out of easily. She could be a good little worker ant and do as the rich always said and saved her money, eventually, she would have enough to make a move and so on. It was easy for the wealthy to lecture the poor, thinking that they knew what was best. They scoffed at the useless things that the dregs of society would buy. Saying: If you don't have enough money to put toward your retirement funds, then why are you buying a flat-screen TV?

They failed to connect with the common person who lived in downtown Gotham: TVs, gaming consoles, concert tickets, drugs, prostitutes, and everything else that was a waste of money was something special to the scum of the city. It was something that for just a little moment would take them away from their problems, away from the hardships that came with this life.

Not that he would partake in those things mind you, he simply understood why people choose to waste their money in such a way. He rather study to get good grades, go to college with a grant, and spend the rest of his days rising up the corporate ladder as a salaryman.

So lost in his thoughts that he failed to realize that he had already boarded the subway and was nearing his stop, that was good, the subway was easily the worst part of his daily routine. The amount of weirdos that would gather around the place was astonishing and he had already received his fair share of muggings to feel no desire to give any money to beggars who bummed around the place.

As he focused on his surroundings, he spotted a weird paper lingering in the air, looking at a different direction he was surprised when the paper moved with his eyesight. Testing the motion of his head again, he realized that the paper was centered in his vision, it would move to wherever he looked.

_I really need more sleep._

Reaching out to grab the paper he noticed something peculiar, it was immovable. He could touch it but moving it was like trying to push against a wall, it did not budge in any way.

_What in the world? It feels weird._

True to his thoughts, the texture of the paper was inexplicable to describe. It felt like it was there, but not really. Like it was a trick of the mind. Seeing that he could not move it he decided to read the stupid thing.

**Welcome Gamer!**

**Ok.**

The 'Ok' part seemed to be almost like a button, risking looking like a weirdo in a train full of them he reached out and pressed his index finger on Ok. The screen immediately changed into a similar screen with more text than the last, at this point Damien had already realized that this thing was definitely not a weird sheet of paper floating in the wind as he initially thought.

**Congratulations on becoming The Gamer!**

**We wish you success in future endeavors, the System will now support you in all aspects of your life as The Gamer.**

**Ok. / View Tutorial.**

Damien looked at the screen with no small amount of confusion, the subway arrived at his stop and he was forced to run out in order not to miss first period. Like the previous screen Damien opted to simply press Ok once more, it was definitely weird, but more than likely it was the weird that would get him a one-way ticket to the Arkham Insane Asylum.

After pressing the Ok button the screen was dismissed and Damien felt relieved that the object of his concern disappeared without a trace, he didn't need something weird in his life now.

_The Gamer?_

The thought stuck to his head for a single lingering moment before it was squashed by the more pressing matter of getting to class.

* * *

Damien stood in front of his classroom door, it stood a monument to his failure. He had arrived late, and as proof, the door was locked. His chances of quietly sneaking into the class were dashed away, he would have to knock and wait for the teacher to unlock the door. A spectacle to be sure.

Damien had no friends, while he was the smartest student in his grade, he never spoke to anyone without being spoken to first, he was the quiet weird kid that spent all his time with his nose on a book. He wasn't weird exactly, but his social awkwardness was like blood in the water to the sharks that lived in the school. He was, by all means, the social outcast of the school. Not that it bothered him much, it got lonely at lunch, but it was not something he pondered on much.

Taking a deep breath he knocked on the door and hear the class go quiet. Footsteps slowly made their way to the door and Damien waited as his stomach dropped, it was his first time being late to class in all his life. The consequences of his tardiness were already piling on his mind.

Damien had never been in trouble and his disposition to authority made him fear punishment, it had been like that for him all his life. He wasn't a coward, but he certainly wasn't the kind of guy to mouth off to the teacher if he got in trouble.

Something peculiar happened however, the anxiety he had been feeling was quickly suppressed into non-existence. It simply vanished. His mind was completely calm, his thoughts flowed fluidly.

"Mr. White, tardy? That's a first, seeing as how it's your first time late to my class I'll let it slide, take your seat." His teacher Mr. Gonzales explained with a monotone voice that expressed how little he cared.

Damien replied with a quiet 'Thank you' and walked on over to his seat, he could feel the class staring him down, normally such attention would have made his cheeks and ears red, but he felt strangely at ease.

As the teacher began to speak about the lesson, class once again forgot about the late teen and returned to the usual small chatter of teens talking about anything but school.

Damien's thoughts drifted back to the thing he had experienced in the subway, _What even is the gamer anyway? Like a video game? _Although he used to play video games as a kid, his current financial situation did not allow for much recreational funds. He had not played in years.

_Does it mean like games like FPS with guns or RPGs with statuses?_

At the last thought, a new window popped up in front of Damien, a much bigger one than the one he had seen previously, this one was filled with information that Damien was not sure what to do with.

**Gamer Status:**

**Select an item to view additional information.**

**Name: Damien White**

**Title: The Gamer  
****Age: 16  
****Gender: Male  
****Level (D): 9  
Debuff: Mental Corruption X100**

**HP: 40  
****SP: 35  
****MP: 0  
****Magic: E0  
****STR: D25  
****DEF: D15  
AGI: D10  
****INT: D85  
****WIS: D55  
****CHAR: B  
****LCK: B  
****Points: 0  
****Money: $15**

Damien stared at the screen for a new minutes, taking in all the information it gave. Way past the point he could discard this as a hallucination, he began to wonder what all the letters and numbers meant.

_Are the letters supposed to denote my ability and the number is for more accuracy? They all are D, expect for his CHAR and LCK. His magic too._

Deciding that the best way to learn more was to simply press on each item.

**Title: Awarded by special actions, can grant stat bonuses and special skills.**

**Level: Represents the current overall rating of your status, a higher level means higher overall ability, each level will naturally increase your attributes. Levels can be earned through the System. (Level is Denoted by a Letter Rank)**

**HP: Represents the maximum amount of health you possess. Should this drop to 0, you will die.**

**SP: Represents the maximum amount of stamina you possess. Should this drop to 0, you will faint.**

**MP: Represents the maximum amount of magic that can be performed. Should this drop to 0, you will be unable to perform magic.**

**Magic: Represents the quality of magic you may produce.**

**STR: Represents the amount of strength you possess.**

**DEF: Represents the amount of defense you possess.**

**AGI: Represents the amount of agility, dexterity, reflexes, and speed you possess.**

**INT: Represents the amount of intelligence you possess.**

**WIS: Represents the amount of wisdom you possess.**

**CHAR: Represents the amount of charisma you possess. Value cannot be changed through normal means.**

**LCK: Represents the amount of luck you possess. Value cannot be changed through normal means.**

**Points: Earned through leveling up, can be allocated to stats.**

Once again, Damien found himself at a huge loss. It was a lot of information to take in, all his ability could be quantified on a single page so easily? It was a reality check to be sure, but it only brought out more questions than what it managed to answer. _The Title section mentioned skills, did he have some sort of menu-_

A thought was all it took for a new screen to pop up in front of the old one, this one more simple than the last.

**Menu:**

**Status**

**Skills/Blessings**

**Inventory**

**Quest**

**Relations**

Damien was beginning to regret not opting in for the tutorial. He checked his inventory and found it empty, along with his quest tab. He decided to check the Skill section next. This one again was filled with information.

**Blessings:**

**\- Gamer's Body, your body is like that of a game. Damage received will decrease your HP rather than damage your body. Sleep will restore HP & remove status effects.**

**\- Gamer's Mind, your mind perceives reality as though it were a game. Allows your mind to be calm despite the situation you may find yourself in, you are immune to all mental statuses and attacks.**

**\- Gamer's Anathema, you will live life as though it were a game. Allows for Paracasual abilities.**

**\- Gamer's Right, set of inalienable tools for the gamer. Gamer can use Inventory and Observe. (Note that entities than exceed The Gamer's level by at least a value of 1 will have information hidden).**

**Skills: A/N**

Aside from that, there was nothing else on the screen. It was surreal, he almost thought that he may have been drugged if not for the fact that it was so vivid. He began to wonder how something like this came to be, everyone knew of the Metagene, but those things tended to be way more physical even if they also had weird abilities, but this was vastly different. This had intelligence behind it, this was even referred to as a System in several of the things he had read so far, the mere fact that it contained text clearly pointed to the fact that something had written it. But for what end? And why did he have it?

The more he thought about it the less it made sense, there was something eerie about the whole thing. The whole Mental Corruption times 100 wasn't giving him much confidence either, had the Gamer's Mind negated the effects? Or...?

There was only one thing he could do now, and that was trying out his new ability. How would he go about receiving a quest, would it come to him? There were too many questions in his head so the only thing he thought about doing was using observe on his classroom. There were plenty of subjects to try it on, he hoped it would be something unnoticeable or there would be a lot of explaining to do.

Looking at his teacher, who still was writing on the board, he thought about how he would go about using his ability before he simply decided to do what felt natural, _Observe, _the thought brought up a box on top of Mr. Gonzales to appear.

**Name: Gustavo Gonzales  
Title: High School Teacher  
Age: 46  
Level (D): 14  
Description: ?  
Relationship: Liked**

It seemed that because his teacher's level was higher than his, he was unable to read his description, he wondered what kind of information that would give. He began to observe some of the other boys around the class to learn more but was saddened to learn he held the lowest level amongst the boys. It wasn't surprising given how little he worked out, but it still stung slightly. Seeing that he was getting nowhere with the boys, he set his eyes on the girls and started to learn more.

**Name: Alice Palm  
****Title: High School Student  
****Age: 16  
Level (D): 8  
Description: Alice Palm is a High school student who likes to spend time texting her boyfriend, dreams of long vacations on the beach, and getting rich by marrying into money.  
Relationship: Disliked**

Finally, he encountered a person with a lower level than him, the information he was given was not much, but it was more than what he knew of her prior. He looked down at his pencil and used Observe.

**A slightly used wooden pencil.**

About what he expected, he continued to observe his classmates until he was satisfied with the results. It was when he was done with the whole class that a new pop up appeared in front of him, this one slightly different, it read:

**Quest!: Know your limits.  
Use Observe on a target whose level greatly exceeds yours.**

**Rewards: 50 XP**

**Failure: None**

**Accept?**

Despite the question mark, Damien took note that there was no option to decline, _would this be the case for all quests or just some? _Seeing no harm in accepting he pressed his finger on the button and saw the Quest placed on its appropriate tab in the menu. No matter how many times Damien used his Observe on others, some football players had levels in the 20s, but it failed to fulfill the quest. There was no exact number by how much higher the level had to be so Damien had no reference to know how much he needed to see. It was then that he spotted the girl of everyone's dreams. Barbara Gordon, the redhead beauty. She was unapproachable due to the fact that her father was the Commissioner of Gotham, getting on his bad side was not on many people's best interest. Therefore, despite her immense popularity she was only ever seen with her closest of friends. He decided to take a look at her information.

**Name: Barbara Gordon  
Title: ?  
Age: 16  
Level (?): ?  
Description: ?  
Relationship: Neutral**

This caught Damien off guard, he had seen dozens of people with Observe, but this was the first time he had been unable to see a person's level. _Was she really that strong? _Word around the street was that she had been trained by the Commissioner had taught her how to use a gun, and she received self-defense lessons. It could explain her abnormal level, after all, he did not know at which point a level would become unknown.

As he began to ponder the new knowledge he had acquired a small ding alerted him that a new screen had popped up once again, this one was a congratulatory one that awarded him 50 XP after he pressed Ok on it. It seemed that it had been enough to fulfill the quest requirement.

On top of his status he noticed a blue bar that was almost full slowly begin to move as the XP was gained, it seemed to be his level bar. The 50 XP was just enough to level up.

**Lvl up!  
****Select to View Gamer Status.**

**First level up will be commemorated with a skill.  
Please select one.**

**1\. Shadow Walker - Shadows are your friend, they will protect you from unwanted attention. Chance to be invisible to perception within shadows, chance will decrease with enemy's level (Will begin the Rogue Path).**

**2\. Create Minion, allows user to summon small dirt golems that can cause minor damage (Will begin the Mage Path).**

**3\. Blessed Gains, enables the user to gain 10% more XP from each quest completed (Will begin the Adventurer Path).**

Damien stared at the screen with incredulous eyes, this was already more than what he wanted to mess with. He instead closed the window and chose to figure out what exactly was going on at a later time, preferably when he was not on school grounds and would seem like a weirdo touching the air.

Damien spent the rest of his day simply observing everything he could see, items, people, and even places. His Observation ability would work on absolutely everything. Somethings were exactly what you expected, but other things provided information that was considered 'important'. Things like date of creation and maker could be found on more custom items.

The school day had come to a close and instead of heading to the library as usual, Damien headed back home, the sooner he got home the more time he would have to explore this phenomenon. The way home was normally spent with his head down, it was normal to not make eye contact with strangers in Downtown Gotham. One never knew when they would encounter a crazy that would like your guts spilled in a dark alley.

But today, Damien held his head up and his eyes were dragged across everything and everyone. He seemed like a country-pumpkin that had never been to the big city with all the gawking he was doing. He soon began to notice a pattern with people's levels. They were all D and in the range of 10-35. He had spotted the irregular obvious thug that was bigger than his peers that reached into the 40s, but aside from that no one else had '?' levels like Barbara Gordon had.

_Now that I think about it, Barbara's level wasn't the only thing that was '?' so was her Letter Rank, does that mean that I couldn't see her level because she had a higher letter than my own?_

**Ding!**

**System:  
Gamer is only able to accurately see a person's level if they are within or lower than your own Letter Rank.**

There was that System again, it seemed to run this whole Gamer thing, Damien came to the conclusion that the System was keeping a constant eye on him and on his thoughts. That aside that meant that Barbara Gordon had a higher Letter Rank than himself, at the very least it was C. He had thought nothing of it when he had first seen it, but after seeing countless people with levels that barely reached the 40s he was sure, Barbara Gordon was freakishly strong compared to everyday people. _A metagene?_

Wherever her strength came from, Damien knew that her level was hidden as a sort of helping hand from the System, it served as a warning that he would be unable to beat an enemy with '?' as their level. His thoughts swirled his head as he headed inside his old apartment complex, hobos littered the sidewalk in front of the place. A sorry sight.

As he sat down and read his options once again in the safety of his apartment he couldn't help but notice that each skill came with a 'Path' what that entailed he wasn't sure, he had a pretty good idea what it meant but there was no way to know until he accepted it.

Shadow Walker seemed to be the most useful on of the three, he could understand from his knowledge of video games that an XP boost would be really helpful when levels required a lot of XP to proceed. However that was more along the lines of an effect that will cause benefit in the distant future, he was feeling impatient and wanted to see what this was all about now.

Lastly, Create Minion, it seemed somewhat useful, but there was no information on what the golems could do, perhaps they were unable to attack at all. Either way, he had no magic to use so maybe it might end up being completely useless.

Considering all his choices, Damien selected Shadow Walker.

**Quest!: Path of the Rogue  
Steal anything!**

**Rewards: 600 XP, Starter Rogue Set.**

**Failure: System Rejection.**

**Accept?**

Once again a quest had appeared and he was not allowed to refuse. The XP was probably good, he had no reference for his judgment after all. What really caught his eye was the Starter Rogue Set, _What does that mean? And System Rejection? That definitely didn't sound good._

And the quest simply said to steal something, that would be harder to pull off that what he was willing to do. Stealing in Gotham happened all the time, but more than half the time the capes would swoop in and stop the thief and when they didn't then maybe the cops would, or even other criminals. It was inviting trouble, and unless you were equipt to handle it, you were best off keeping to yourself.

The quest said steal anything, so maybe he didn't even need to go out. After all his mother left her money for drugs under her bed. It wasn't much, only a few hundred dollars. Enough to pay a month's worth of rent, or get her high a couple of times. He knew which his mother preferred.

Damien felt a bit bad about stealing from his mother, but he would only take a dollar and return it after the quest was complete. He hoped that the System would recognize this as stealing. He lifted his mother's mattress slightly and pulled out one of the crumbled up bills. The quest did not complete. He wondered to himself if he would have to go steal from a store before a thought struck him. He walked out of the room.

**Ding!  
Quest Step Complete!: Path of the Rogue  
Steal anything!**

**Rewards: 600 XP, Starter Rogue Set.**

**Ok.**

Damien noted the usage of the word 'step' and pressed Ok. True to his observations a new screen popped up.

**Quest Updated!: Path of the Rogue  
****Steal $1,000 in any form.**

**Rewards: 1,000 XP, System's Blessing, Rogue Basic Skill Set.**

**Failure: System Rejection.**

**Accept?**

The value of the things he had to steal had gone up in the next step, it made sense. Games only ever got harder not easier. Plus a blessing, he had noticed that Skills and Blessings had different categories after all.

Still stealing so much money, it would certainly not be as easy as the first step. He had no idea how he would even go about it or if he even wanted to. These things were piling on to his mind once again, but he was completely at ease. It would not be strange for a person to feel overwhelmed and have a nervous breakdown from such an intrusion on reality, but Damien only knew tranquility. _The Gamer's Mind, this was the cause of this, a blessing. _Having no other choice to accept it, Damien selected 'Accept'. The dismissal of the screen only brought a new screen in its place.

**Lvl up!  
****Lvl up!  
****Lvl up!**

**Select to view Gamer status.**

**Starter Rogue Set added to Inventory.**

His rewards had come, the levels were nice. It was an interesting feeling, it was barely noticeable when he went from level 9 to 10, but three levels at once was a major difference. He felt himself grow slightly stronger, it was small but it was undeniable progress.

The thing that really had his interest was the set given to him. He called out his Inventory and spotted the previously empty slots had now seven slots filled. His inventory was supposed to hold up to 100 unique items that might be able to stack depending on the item. He tapped each of the items and they read:

**Scarf of the Initiated Rogue (D): +5 INT, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)  
Grips of the Initiated Rogue (D): +5 STR, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)  
****Vest of the Initiated Rogue (D): +5 DEF, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)  
****Boots of the Initiated Rogue(D): +5 AGI, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)  
****Cloak of the Initiated Rogue(D): +5 MP, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)  
****Pendant of the Initiated Rogue (D): +5 WIS, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)  
****Dagger of the Initiated Rogue (D): +5 STR, part of the Initiated Rogue set (1/7)****  
**

A new prompt appeared as he continued to survey the effects that the items had.

**Equip Initiated Rogue set?**

**Yes / No**

Finally having a choice in these prompts made Damien less stressed out, he could decide to deny the prompt. Not that he would, but the choice was a nice gesture. Selecting 'Yes' Damien felt a boost in power surge through him.

**Full set bonus active:  
+20 AGI  
+15 INT  
+10 STR  
+5 MP**

It was then that Damien saw his attire had changed, he now wore a dark leather vest that covered his whole torso minus the center where his brown undershirt could be seen, at the edge of the vest were silver buttons. His hands were now covered by brown long gloves that ran all the way slightly past his elbow where it met the sleeves of his vest. A black scarf covered most of his face except his eyes, he also wore black form-fitting pants that led to dark boots that ran up to his knees. around his waist were two brown belts that hanged loosely to each side, a few pouches in each belt. He noticed a cloak that was dark on the outside and silver on the inside, the cloak's hood covered his head well. Hanging down his neck was a small red stone in the form of a pendant.

Looking down to his left thigh he noticed a brown leather holster, in it a short silver blade with a black handle. It was very clearly sharp.

"Status."

**Gamer Status:**

**Select an item to view additional information.**

**Name: Damien White  
****Title: The Gamer  
****Age: 16  
****Gender: Male  
****Level (D): 13  
****Debuff: Mental Corruption X100**

**HP: 48  
****SP: 43  
****MP: 8 (13)  
****Magic: E8  
****STR: D33 (D55)  
DEF: D23 (D28)  
****AGI: D18 (D43)  
****INT: D93 (D+113)  
****WIS: D63 (D68)  
****CHAR: B  
****LCK: B  
****Points: 8  
****Money: $16**

**Ding!  
****INT was unable to progress to C rank due to current level Letter Rank, received "+" denotation to reflect this.**

Studying the status a bit more, he realized that buffed attributes displayed the buffed value in "()" while the natural value remained the same. Judging by that final alert, it seemed INT was meant to evolve into a C rank but was unable to, likely due to his D rank for his level. His thoughts began to shift to the quest, he needed to steal a thousand dollars worth of stuff, the suit was very cool and literally doubled his strength but he couldn't simply walk into a store with it on and steal stuff. He could get shot, a cape could find out, police, and a million other things could happen. And sneaking in was just as difficult, he didn't know how to even begin sneaking into anywhere. No lockpicking skills, cool Mission Impossible gadgets or anything of the sort. So how?

It was then that an idea reached his brain, maybe he didn't even need to use the suit to steal $1,000, maybe he could simply walk in and out of the store with the merchandise. With this Inventory, he could simply drag expensive items into a slot and walk out with it, even if they suspected him of shoplifting they would not find the items in his possession. _This could work..._

Quickly heading out to the nearest big-box store to him, it was only a few blocks away. No need for a subway ride!

Heading out of his apartment he was once again hit with the smell of piss from the local hobos. Their pleas for some cash fell on deaf ears, Damien could barely take care of himself, and these people asking him for charity placed him in a sour mood.

Upon reaching the store Damien had a thought, which section was the easiest to steal from? Without a second thought he began to head down to the electronics section of the store, he remembers always passing by there and seeing exorbitant prices for those things. Stopping at the sign that read: 65" 4K Smart TV, he looked at the pallet filled with the things. He glanced at the price, $1,208.99. He would only need one. He placed his hand over the unbound item and thought _Inventory._

The TV was completely gone, no trace of it remained. Looking down at his inventory he spotted the TV taking up a slot. He had it in his possession, but just like last time the quest did not complete.

When he stole his mother's dollar, he had to leave her room before the quest was completed. The same thing applied here, he had to leave the scene of the crime before the system recognized the item as stolen. So he headed to the cashier and grabbed a chocolate bar to pay for, just to look a little less suspicious.

He smiled and waved at the young cashier and walked out of the store with over a thousand dollars worth of merchandise.

"This is way easier than what I thought it would be," he muttered to himself.

**Ding!  
Quest Step Complete!: Path of the Rogue  
Steal $1,000 in any form.**

**Rewards: 1,000 XP, System's Blessing, Rogue Basic Skill Set.**

**Ok.**

**Lvl up!  
Lvl up!  
Lvl up!**

**Select to view Gamer status.**

Damien ignored the 'Lvl up!' messages and instead went straight for the Skills/Blessings section, he was really interested in the System's Blessing.

**Blessings:**

**\- Gamer's Body, your body is like that of a game. Damage received will decrease your HP rather than damage your body. Sleep will restore HP & remove status effects.**

**\- Gamer's Mind, your mind perceives reality as though it were a game. Allows your mind to be calm despite the situation you may find yourself in, you are immune to all mental statuses and attacks.**

**\- Gamer's Anathema, you will live life as though it were a game. Allows for Paracasual abilities.**

**\- Gamer's Right, set of inalienable tools for the Gamer. Gamer can use Inventory and Observe. (Note that entities than exceed The Gamer's level by at least a value of 1 will have information hidden).**

**\- System's Blessing, awards the Gamer minor Mystery Boxes on predetermined Levels, awards major Mystery Box for progressing a Letter Rank.**

**Skills:**

**\- ****Shadow Walker: Shadows are your friend, they will protect you from unwanted attention. Chance to be invisible to perception within shadows, chance will decrease with enemy's level (1 SP/min).**

**\- Stealth Strike: You take your enemy by surprise with an attack they never see coming. Hit target with 300% more damage, if target is unware of your presence deal an extra 200% (10 SP per usage).**

**\- Shadow Step: You feel at ease in the night, flow through the shadows as though they were your home. 25% boost to AGI in the dark, your footsteps create no noise at night (5 SP/min).**

**\- Rogue Dodge: A deceptive dodge that will take you out of your enemy's sight. Allows user to dodge out of an attack with 500% AGI boost, makes user turn to a purple mist as the dodge is performed, you are invulnerable for 1 second (10 SP per usage).**

**\- Rogue's key: No lock can keep you away from what you want. Allows user to pick a lock that is at least one level below them (5 SP per usage).**

**\- Rogue's acrobatics: Move like a true acrobat in the night. Allows user to move their body in such a way to effectively transverse their environment (Passive).**

**\- Assassinate: No armor can stand against you, this is a true hit. Deals 200% True damage, ignore all armor and resistances (100 SP per usage).**

Damien stood wide-eyed at the new skills he had received, it all sounded so incredible. Before he could spend more time looking over the new skills he had acquired a new pop up appeared.

**Quest Updated!: Path of the Rogue  
****Steal $1,000,000 in any form without being caught.  
Deadline: 1 month**

**Rewards: 1,000,000 XP, +10,000 Infamy, Cloak of Secrets (A).**

**Failure: System Rejection.**

**Accept?**

_1,000,000!?_

Despite being a very smart kid he had taken this long to realize that he was trapped. He no choice but to accept the quests given by the system, before he could accept them and not worry about them but now... a deadline had been imposed out of nowhere. Failing the quest was still on the table, but quite frankly it didn't take a genius to figure out that 'System Rejection' did not sound pleasant at all.

His only hope now was that if he completed this step it would stop, three quest steps seem like basic game design so he could only hope that such a future came to pass.

Night was falling on Gotham City and so he hurried his step and headed back home, he had a whole month to plan and figure out how he would go about this.

* * *

**AN: Happy New Year's everyone! I had some free time and I always wanted to write a gamer story so I decided what the heck and whipped something up. Not very happy with this chapter, I noticed that as a gamer fic, a lot of the chapter ends up being the system talking to the gamer, from next chapter on I'll find ways to minimize that clutter (Hopefully). A couple of things I wanted to get out of the way, obviously Damien is an OC, took me about all of five minutes to come up with him since he is supposed to be the epitome of normal. This DC Universe is an AU made from several different sources. I always hated the party system and the MC telling everyone about the gamer power so there will be none of that in my fic. Other than that, I think that's everything. Thanks for reading this far!**


	2. Life as a Thief

**Disclaimer: I don't own DC Comics.**

**Chapter Two: Life as a Thief**

* * *

Waking up in his bed was a brand new experience for Damien today, it was completely different from yesterday's and nothing had changed; nothing but himself. The original problem stemmed from his old and worn mattress, it had clearly seen better days in which it was surely at least remotely comfortable, but those days were long gone. Even his daily crude awakening was not having a negative effect on his sleep, Damien's environment was not one that gave out restful sleep. But his body was at ease, strangely, he felt completely rested. As though he had a brand new body: no aches from sleeping in an awkward position, no feeling of wanting to sleep more, no grogginess at all, it was almost magical.

_So this is the Gamer's body? It said I would fully rest once I slept, and it also mentioned that I would receive damage to my HP rather than to my physical body…_

Deciding that he was better off not testing how his body would react to damage, he got up from his bed. It was Saturday and he had already completed this week's homework; free time was in abundance.

Getting a change of clothes Damien took a shower and got ready for his day of exploring his new powers as the Gamer, he wanted to desperately try out the new skills he had received. And the System's Blessing too, he was not sure at what level he would receive a Mystery Box, or what that even was for that matter. As he walked out of his small bathroom, he spotted his face in the mirror, a small detail caught his eyes. The heavy bags under his eyes were gone, years of bad sleeping habits had now disappeared with a single night's sleep.

Looking at the change for one more moment was enough, and he headed out of the bathroom intent on eating some breakfast in the form of cereal. He was never a good cook. A generic brand of milk and cereal later he was ready to settle in his room and fiddle with the system.

As he sat in his bed the thought of, _status_, was enough to prompt the familiar box to appear in his vision.

**Gamer Status:**

**Select an item to view additional information.**

**Name: Damien White**  
**Title: The Gamer**  
**Age: 16**  
**Gender: Male**  
**Level (D): 16**  
**Debuff: Mental Corruption X100**

**HP: 54**  
**SP: 49**  
**MP: 14(19)**  
**Magic: E14**  
**STR: D39(D61)**  
**DEF: D29(D34)**  
**AGI: D24(D49)**  
**INT: D99(D+119)**  
**WIS: D69(74)**  
**CHAR: B**  
**LCK: B**  
**Points: 14**  
**Money: $16**

He had gone up several levels since the last time he checked due to the XP he gained from the previous quest, which brought another point to his mind. So far the only quests he had received were from the System, all to do with the Path of the Rogue he had chosen, but there was likely another method to receive quests. After all, he had received a quest from the System that had to do with the use of the Observe ability. It was part of the Gamer's Right so it might not count as a skill but a blessing instead.

_Can I get a quest for the new skills I unlocked?_

**Ding!**

The thought had immediately summoned a new window to overlap the status.

**Quest!: Skill Tutorial**  
**Learn how the System supports skill usage by using skills (Note that Passive skills require no interaction).**

**Rewards: 500 XP, Random Skill, Unlock Daily Quest.**  
**Failure: Loss of Daily Quest system.**

**Accept?**

**Yes / No**

Without having to think too much about his decision, a finger was soon pressed against the 'Yes' option. Trying out a skill was something he had wanted to do anyway, if he could receive a skill and some XP to go along with it, he would not complain, not to mention the Daily Quest feature. It sounded like he could get objectives done each day for XP or other rewards.

He needed to understand his power to the best of his ability and going through all the prompts was probably the best choice he had, all this was powered by his dilemma. Stealing a million dollars without being caught. He did not assume that he would have an easy time with such a problem, in fact, he was trying to get as many abilities and strength as possible before he had to attempt the quest. Truthfully, he had no problems with stealing, but this was on a whole another level. The kind of things capes would usually stop. But the fear of System Rejection drove him on.

_Now about using those new skills, passives are always active, so I don't have to worry about those, right?_

He remembered the Rogue's Acrobatics skill, which was a passive that would allow him to move across his environment with ease, thinking about how he wanted to move in his mind he threw his body backward and arched his back as he was launched across the air in his room, faintly he saw his dresser behind him and caught himself by grabbing it on both ends. He had gone across the room in the blink of an eye and was now doing a handstand on his dresser.

_How did I do that?_

The System had supported the usage of the passive skill, allowing Damien who had never attended a class of acrobatics to move with the limberness of an Olympian athlete.

With the passive skill out of the way Damien began to ponder which skill he should try next, all the other skills were either attacks or things that would allow him to hide, all accept for Rogue Dodge and Rogue's Key, and seeing as how there where no locks around the dodge would have to do.

Unlike the passive skill which is always active, this skill had to be activated to be used. The problem was that Damien had no idea how to use a skill, what if he shouted out the skill name and made a pose only to see no result. He would look like an idiot if only to the prying eyes of the System, the next obvious choice was to think about it. _Rogue Dodge_.

Immediately his body felt inky, like a dark fluid that could move and contort in any way. His body turned into a small purple-like mist, which flew through the air backward with immense speed. It felt like he sort of flowed through the air.

_That's incredible, I underestimated the 500% AGI boost, I moved crazy fast!_

He had moved in a blur of speed, he had not moved far from his original position, but he had moved quickly. Certainly a useful skill. And activated with a mere thought, _So intuitive_.

After trying both a passive skill and an activation skill the quest was complete.

**Ding!**

**Quest Complete!: Skill Tutorial**  
**Learn how the System supports skill usage by using skills (Note that Passive skills require no interaction).**

**Rewards: 500 XP, Random Skill, Unlock Daily Quest.**

**Daily Quest Unlocked!**

**Blade & Hand Style: Skill (D) unlocked!**

**Lvl up!**  
**Lvl up!**

A fighting style as a skill was something that caught Damien's eye, after all, he had not thought about what would happen if he got into a fight, if he only knew how to use certain attacks then he would be toast if they failed to defeat his opponents. A fighting style would ensure he at least stood a chance in combat, he just hoped that it worked like the other skills and the System would support him.

**Ding!**

**Daily Quest!: XP**  
**Complete the following activities, they will nurture your growth as The Gamer.**  
**\- Complete 100 pushups.**  
**\- Complete 100 squats**  
**\- Complete 100 sit-ups**  
**\- Complete 2 minutes of planks**

**Rewards: 200 XP**

**Failure: None**

**Accept?**

**Yes / No**

For Damien that had not worked out outside the exercise that he would do in gym class, this was a bit of a tall order. Not impossible, especially when compared to the previous quest assigned, just tedious. Still, he needed the XP, he pressed the 'Yes' option and got to work.

Sweat dripped down his forehead and onto his nose before it fell to the floor, it was a good thing his body was fully rested before he began the workout because he was feeling his muscles ache and beg for relief. He fell to the floor after he counted two minutes in his head, a System message popped up informing him that the quest was complete, and he managed to level up once again. He simply dismissed the messages and continued to lay down on the floor.

He laid there for a new more minutes before he gathered his strength and got up, a quick look at his SP showed that he had dropped down to 11, it had likely gone up a bit from his minutes spent resting. Going outside was the next thing on his agenda, he needed the fresh air to clear his head and plan his next move.

After he cleaned himself from all the sweat, Damien headed outside.

"Some fresh air," he complained to himself, the air in Downtown Gotham was bad. Large buildings would stop the flow of air and the streets that were filled with taxi drivers that would ensure that there was always smog in your lungs as you went out for a walk. He wasn't a go green fanatic, if the earth got more polluted then it wasn't his fault or his responsibility, but he definitely cared when the pollution went straight to his face, "This is surely bad for my health."

He continued to walk down the street until he reached the newspaper stand, the best place for a regular person like him to get information on what goes around in Gotham. He took a paper and placed the change in the counter before he walked away to reach the issues.

Gang violence, shootouts, robberies, escaped rapists, domestic abuse perpetrators caught, and every other crime imaginable could be found in the pages of the Gotham Gazette. But those things didn't catch his eyes, the main issue did. In it was a large print photo taken of a man grappling from Arkham Asylum, the Caped Crusader himself, Batman. Apparently, he had stopped a ploy to liberate all the inmates, Firefly now sat in police custody. It honestly felt like Firefly was in police custody just last month.

After looking through all the information in the issue he continued to look for what he needed, and on the third page he found it, the previous Crown Jewel of Bialya, it had been replaced recently when a new ruler took over the old one. In a sign of good faith in the relations between the U.S. and the country of Bialya, it was going to be touring around museums all across the country. The crown would be arriving in Gotham in two weeks and would be in display for three days before it would move to another major city.

_A crown jewel of another country? That must be worth millions, it's the perfect chance but…_

Going from stealing a TV through the usage of Inventory to stealing a multi-million dollar national treasure was a huge leap. He didn't know the first thing about stealing like a phantom thief, sneaking in at night and leaving with the item would not be easy, especially when guys like Batman were roaming around at night.

If he wanted his heist to be a success, he would have to work his way up to it, he had two weeks until the item arrived, and from there he would have three days before it left Gotham. That was plenty of time to practice on a small scale and not only get used to skills but also learn how to be a good thief. There was no better teacher than experience after all.

The first step would be to find a suitable target, something that would be within the scope of his abilities but not easy enough that he would learn nothing.

Walking around the neighborhood he looked at place after place that held valuables. Each one sported decent security by the obvious cameras and barred windows. The things he stole almost didn't matter, he just needed to get better. Soon he stood in front of a large building with shining lights, in the dark architecture of Gotham, this building stood in defiant contrast, but Damien could only hold vicious disdain for it.

"Gotham Star Pawn Shop." the words spat from his mouth.

He had always hated these sorts of places since he first knew how they operated, a person was in dire need of money, they turned to these pawn shops in hopes for a loan decent enough to pay for the things that they have to pay: rent, hospital bills, funeral payments, car repairs, and any other emergency that came to peoples lives. A collateral was called in exchange for the loan, the interest in your loan would ensure that they would get their money back and then some. If you failed to pay the loan, you would be given 30 days to make the payment before the pawnshop had the legal right to sell your property, which often had sentimental value. A fair system.

But less than a decade ago, lots of money was thrown around for lobbyists to sway Gotham City council to change the law and allow these shops to impose a higher interest rate on the loans and no waiting periods to sell the collateral. It was greed in its most shameful form, and many people fell prey to it. Losing things that they worked hard for and things that were given to them by their parents and grandparents. A cheat of the ignorant.

_This will make a perfect target._

Why steal from small business owners when there existed such scum? Damien searched his brain with this question but was unable to find an answer, so his target was decided right then and there.

_It's pretty fitting that I should steal from those that have been stealing from the desperate all this time, in fact, it's more than just fitting, it's… **Justice**._

Damien suddenly clutched his head in response to a sharp pain that surged through his brain, the pain was so great that he failed to think for a moment and almost fell on the floor. Before that could happen, just as quickly as the pain came, it was gone.

His mind went back to what it had thought, his thoughts that stealing was not wrong. Sure he saw the irony in stealing from the pawnshop, but he began to wonder if that was true justice, _Are these really my thoughts and feelings?_

It was bad enough that the Gamer's Mind was able to influence his mind, it was supposed to prevent mental attacks and statuses but the Gamer's Mind itself was a form of mental manipulation. The thought that maybe the System was affecting his mental state and disposition came to his brain, _What is the System's goal?_

Knowing that he could spend all day thinking about this but still never come close to the answer he began to walk his way into the pawnshop, he needed to case the store for spotting the location of cameras and valuables. He wasn't a master thief, but that was pretty much common sense.

There were cameras in every corner and in every entrance, it would be hard to work his way past those. All the things that were of true value like the jewelry and other expensive items were behind a glass counter that served as a display case.

Using Observe on the cameras revealed just about what you would expect.

**An older security camera model.**

But one showed extra information that the System deemed relevant.

**An older security camera model, has been broken for over three months.**

_Bingo._

He looked over the display were the employees would use a key to take out an item for the customer to inspect, using Observe yielded the following information:

**A standard lock. (D5)**

And nothing more. Still, it was enough for him, the Rogue's Key skill allowed him to pick a lock that was at least one level below his and although he was not sure how a lock's level was decided he didn't particularly care. All it meant was that he was able to pick this lock.

It was a strange experience for Damien, one day he is the A-honor roll student and the next he is planning how to rob a pawn shop in the middle of the night. Still, common sense was thrown out the window the moment he began to see the information of things and people.

He was really happy with both Observe and Inventory, extra emphasis on Inventory after the late-night experiments he did with it.

He discovered that he could place many things in the slots with some exceptions. He knew that at a certain point things that were too big would not go into his Inventory, he had tried with several cars on the way home. Things that were currently bound somewhere could also not be placed in his Inventory, lastly, things that were alive were also not allowed into his slots. Aside from that everything else was fair game, he had even discovered that either time would not pass for items placed inside, that or time would pass extremely slowly; judging by the warm cup of water that remained hot for over an hour.

Inventory would allow him to fill his pockets with all sorts of valuables without being weighted down, it really was a blessing.

Feeling satisfied with his observations he turned on his heel and headed for his home.

* * *

It was already 1 in the afternoon, but his mother still was sleeping in her bed. That was fine since she had the night shift today, the convenience store she worked at had irregular working hours that would shift at the drop of a hat.

It worked just as well, he didn't want to worry his mother if she realized her son was missing at night.

Ever since he had gotten the Observe ability there was someone he had been wanting to use it on. His mother.

She never spoke about herself and even though she had never given him motherly love, she had kept him and taken care of him, he wanted to know how he felt about it all and about her life. With a thought he cast Observe.

**Name: Jennifer White**  
**Title: Cashier**  
**Age: 35**  
**Level (D): 12**

**Description: Jennifer White was born to a loving family that cared for her as the only child, unfortunately, life decisions led her to an early pregnancy and drug abuse that left her disowned. She lives life paycheck to paycheck, often wasting her money on drugs and alcohol.**

**Relationship: Disliked**

Damien felt a pang in his heart, he stared at the information for a minute before he closed the door to her room. He didn't want to let the revelation get to him, he didn't have a great relationship with his mother, but he thought that he was at least loved in some capacity. Although it was painful, he rationalized that her becoming pregnant with him at a young eye probably would lead to some resentment. To hate those that take away your happiness if human nature, nothing to do with him as a person. He didn't dwell on it and went to his room. He had a few hours before his mother would wake up and go to work.

Deciding to check out the new skill he had acquired he went to his menu and began to read the description.

Blade & Hand Style: Use short-bladed weapons and your hands to fight against opponents in close range. You can use short blades with C proficiency, fast slash attacks that seek to whittle down opponents to create opportunities to deal critical damage. Your hands are quick and ferocious; able to fight barehanded with attacks that focus on dancing around your opponent to deliver as many blows as possible, enables C hand proficiency (Passive) (Scales in power with AGI).

The 'Passive' gave Damien no small amount of relief, it would be awful to lose all his SP simply by knowing how to fight. It was hard for him to visualize himself fighting since he had never been in a fight before, choosing instead to avoid conflict, but if it was anything like the Rogue's Acrobatics that he had tried before then it should come naturally to him. At least he hoped so.

Deciding to test that theory he equipped his dagger and held it in his hand, it glinted in the light of his bedroom. Immediately he felt a huge difference to the time he had held it yesterday. Before he held the knife in a death grip by wrapping his thumb over his index finger, this sort of grip would only make it harder to balance it and maneuver it mid-strike; not to mention waste energy.

Now he gripped the blade in only his palm while his thumb rested on the edge of the actual blade, he would move his thumb to either blunt side when he struck depending on how he wanted to guide the blade. This served to make the dagger seem almost like an extension of his hand, a much more fluid way to utilize it.

He lazily moved the dagger in an arc in front of himself and felt the blade drag itself across the air and silently cut the wind. He felt like he had been holding blades all his life, a barrage of strikes followed.

Damien stopped the attacks and took a breath to meditate slightly. The same feeling that had overtaken him with the acrobatics had remerged as he used the blade, _Passive skills are the best!_

He began to fiddle with his status, he needed to be as prepared as possible for tonight. It was his important practice after all. He looked at his points, in games he could allocate points gained from leveling up to specific attributes so he was sure he would be able to do the same here. His expectations had been met as he could move his points into stats. He could place points and if he tried to exit the status the System prompted him to ask if he wanted to save his changes. _At least there was a confirmation system in place in case I mess up using these points_, he continued to mess with the points and learned several things. For starters, he could raise all non-ranked stats by 5 with each point allocated into them: HP, MP, and SP. Every other stat would be raised with a one to one ratio except DEF and AGI. Those two were slightly different and he theorized it had to do with the Path of the Rogue quest. AGI would be raised two points per point allocated while DEF would only rise a single point for every two points used, twice the effort.

He decided to place most of his points into AGI and some into HP and SP.

**Gamer Status:**

**Select an item to view additional information.**

**Name: Damien White**  
**Title: The Gamer**  
**Age: 16**  
**Gender: Male**  
**Level (D): 19**  
**Debuff: Mental Corruption X102**  
**HP: 80**  
**SP: 60**  
**MP: 20(25)**  
**Magic: E20**  
**STR: D45(D67)**  
**DEF: D35(D40)**  
**AGI: D60(D85)**  
**INT: D+105(D+125)**  
**WIS: D75(80)**  
**CHAR: B**  
**LCK: B**  
**Points: 0**  
**Money: $16**

His fighting style should scale with AGI so he made the judgment call to place most of his points there, as far as he knew rogues had to rely on evasion rather than defense to avoid damage, which was probably the reason he had a DEF deficiency. Besides, it was better to be really good in one area than to be completely rounded in all attributes.

_Still, maybe it was unwise to waste all my skill points, right now I only need about 180~ XP to level up but if this is like all other games then that XP needed to go to the next level will rise exponentially. I'd rather have some points in reserve in case of an emergency._

Spending his time looking over the System made the wait go by in the blink of an eye, he seemed to be easily engrossed the prompts. His mother had left for work and now he could head out to the pawnshop.

After waiting a few minutes just in case his mother needed to come back because she forgot something, he found himself walking down the dark streets. It was always cold in Gotham but the winter was coming and it snowed every year. He wore simple blue jeans and a grey t-shirt, no need to put on his gear until he reached the pawnshop. It would be pretty weird if he got spotted walking around with that getup.

_Not like I can go jumping around the roofs like Batman and the other heroes of Gotham._

A block away from the pawnshop, he spotted an empty alley that was empty due to the horrid smell coming from the trashcans pilled in. Taking a deep breath he walked in and equipped his rogue set, the instantaneous way it would onto his body was still slightly jarring but he was grateful he did not have to start taking off his clothes in a dark alley at night.

Activating Shadow Step for the extra speed and footstep noise nullification he moved through the alleys like a bullet, he seemed to dip in and out of existence as he moved through some dark corners. He wanted to get to his destination as quickly as possible since he was wasting 5 SP per minute with this skill.

Taking a longer route to reach the pawnshop from the back, he began to climb the fire escape with ease, a silent thanks to his skills later and he found himself on the roof of the building. A ventilation installation dented out of the building and gave Damien his ticket inside.

Quickly deactivating his skill with a thought he got to work on the vent grate, he used his knife as a screwdriver to unscrew the vent out of place. It actually took more time than what he had expected to pull out all sic screws, they were very tight and hard to turn but he was done.

The ventilation was dusty and small, but he managed to fit inside snuggly, he began to drag himself with his elbows one at a time. The dust bunnies would go into his eyes and he was happy that the scarf covered his mouth.

Reaching the end of the vent he observed once again where the dead spot was in the room, he would have to jump halfway across the room to land safely out of the way of the cameras, but he felt confident in himself to make the jump, especially since he had used his points on AGI.

Kicking the grate bent it in an arc and another kick sent it falling to the floor. His hands reached out of the vent and gripped the side of the wall, pulling out more of his body he hanged over the room, his right leg rested on the lip of the vent. Relaxing himself he pushed off with that foot and let his body jump through the air and land softly in the dead spot.

_So far so good._

Damien had seen a second floor in the store, likely where the manager or owner's office laid, seeing as how he was already in and had not triggered any alarms, he nimbly made his way over to the stares making sure he was not spotted by the cameras. There was no one watching the feed directly, but he still didn't want someone recognizing him under the scarf when the footage would be reviewed.

Reaching the main office he tried the knob expecting it to be locked, an attempted twist of the knob proved him right and he pulled out a bobby pin and paperclip he had prepared in advance. The lock was a decent amount of levels below him and a few seconds later the door was opened.

He marched in intending to find any valuables that he might find and get out to the merchandise below, the longer he stuck around the higher the chances he would be caught.

Directly behind the office desk was a small safe, this thing's level was just below his, a stroke of luck to be sure. Getting to work on the lock took a few more minutes than the last lock but he was rewarded by the small clink of the safe lock opening. Inside was several thousand dollars in cash along with documents. Ignoring the documents Damien took the cash and placed it into his inventory, he checked his status to see that his money had gone from $16 to $7,516.

At the sight of the quick cash he had made he almost felt sick, he had spent his whole life trying to be a person who could work for someone else and make a decent living. But if he could make money this easy, then why should he waste his life slaving away in an office 9 to 5?

**_BANG!_**

A loud crash was heard by Damien, followed quickly by the sound of glass falling onto the floor.

His heart began to beat out of his chest, _Someone's here?_ He quickly began to try to slink his way out of the building.

"Quickly take all the things with diamonds and gold, Jarrett go to the upstairs office and crack that safe open, take the drill."

"Got it!"

"And move quicker we only have a new minutes before Gotham PD show up!"

As Damien picked his brain for a way to escape without being seeing a new thought invaded his mind.

_Why should I run away? These crude thugs are getting in my way, not the other way around. Am I really going to let these people take what should be my prize?_

The thought was followed by a sharp pain but Damien found himself hardly caring about that, rather he found himself in agreement with this new mindset. So he quickly took a position directly above the door to the office, he was crouched over the frame of the door which gave him about an inch of space for his feet. But somehow he was able to find his balance.

Almost immediately later the door opened up quickly, a man wearing all black with a ski mask walking him. The most notable feature was the black gun in his right hand.

The man spotted the opened safe and was about to shout out to his partners, so Damien leaped from the shadows and performed his Stealth Strike, his fist moved out and left an afterimage. As the punch was released Damien felt his fist move with such force that it was almost like it had come out of a cannon. The fist met the back of the guy's head and the impact was so strong that he flew across the room and hit the bookshelves in the wall. The wood splintered and the books were thrown in all directions.

Damien had not expected the man to fly so far from a punch, he was expecting to catch him off guard but not knock him out in one punch.

A small notification popped up in the corner of his eye.

**+100 XP**

XP for defeating opponents was not strange and Damien cast Observe on the downed man.

**Jarrett Kings**  
**Title: Thug**  
**Age: 26**  
**Level (D): 23**

**Description: A small-time robber who makes a decent living stealing from any stores that he and his partners can steal from.**

**Relationship: Neutral**

_Level 23? That guy was way weaker than me, I think? They probably heard that, I got to take care of them and get out before the police show up._

* * *

Mike was finishing up placing all the jewelry in the bag that they had brought before he heard a loud crash come from upstairs.

He was the brains of the operation, he planned out the robberies and also the one who researched where the money was and what the items were kept along with the security measures. His two friends were just the muscle for the operations.

He shook his head at the noise that Jarrett was creating upstairs, "I told you that you should have gone up with the drill, Jarrett is a good guy but he's a bit of an idiot. Just hope he didn't drill his hand or something," he looked at his other partner, Dan, and spoke to him, "Go check on the idiot. I got all the items, we just need his end and we are out of here. We probably have about two minutes left so let's hurry."

Dan nodded and began to make his way up the stairs but suddenly stopped at the top of the stairs, he jolted like he had been scared.

Mike watched from the bottom of the stairs as his friend stood fixated in the dark corner next to the stairs, "Dan, what's the holdup? You see something?"

Dan simply stood there for another silent moment before he shook his head, "No, sorry I just thought I saw eyes in the dark, but I must have been seeing stuff."

Mike looked at the corner Dan was talking about but found nothing but the faint darkness, it was shadowy but not impossible to see into, it was empty.

Dan resumed his walk into the office but as he passed by the dark a pair of hands flew out of nowhere like snakes and wrapped around Dan's neck.

Suddenly Dan was gasping for air and kicking violently. Mike took a second to understand what had just happened before he pointed his gun at the figure which came out of the dark.

He shouted at the man, "I will shoot! Let him go! Now!" but the man continued to choke out his friend, Mike tried to get a good angle, but Dan's frantic flailing was making that impossible.

A few seconds late Dan lost consciousness and the figure let him fall to the floor.

Mike had a decent head on his shoulders, he was no genius, but he was smart enough to pick his fights but the adrenaline in his system was making his decisions cloudy and sloppy.

His nerves finally snapped, and he began, "You bastard! Die!", as soon as he leveled his gun to the figure the man somersaulted in an amazing display of speed and as the bullets left the barrel of Mike's gun, he turned into a gaseous form that moved back towards the wall in front of the stairs.

The sudden showing of supernatural abilities made Mike stop shooting, the gas pressed halfway up against the wall and the man reformed immediately. He materialized with both of his feet pressed up against the wall and in an instant, he had jumped from his position and cut through the air like an arrow to reach Mike.

The movement was so majestic that Mike completely became mesmerized by the show of skill and missed the dagger that the figure had pulled out mid-air.

The attack was precise in every way, it was perfectly balanced as it slashed upwards across his chest. It cut through his leather jacket and an inch into his chest. The feeling of the dagger cutting his flesh felt like a sear that burned his skin. The fight was over as he fell over backward.

He felt his blood spill out from his chest as the figure approached him once more. He stalked his way next to Mike and he managed to get a good glance at the man's eyes. He looked young and had blue eyes, but he didn't look angry nor malicious. Just calm.

He reached out with his bare hand towards Mike and he closed his eyes expecting death to reach him.

He was surprised as the figure instead reached his hand pried the bag of jewelry from his death grip. The figure shook the bag as if to make sure that the bag was filled and ran as soon as red and blue lights began to shine through the windows.

* * *

Damien reached his bed and laid down in it, he was completely exhausted. His plan had been derailed, but he had still succeeded.

He quickly dismissed the prompts of a level up and a minor Mystery Box. He just wanted to think for a second before he got to that.

_What in the world am I doing? Stealing and fighting at night? Is there something wrong with me? I mean this transition is pretty crazy but I… I feel wonderful._

When Damien had fought those robbers in the pawnshop, his heart was beating out of his chest. But surprisingly he felt a huge thrill as he took what he wanted from that pawn shop and when he fought those who wanted to take that from him.

_I don't want to hurt people, run out and cause destruction for the sake of destruction, nor do I have a hero complex that makes me want to throw myself into harm's way to save the innocent. What do I want?_

The thoughts that had been swimming in Damien's head began to pour out before he found himself calm once again and clear to think efficiently.

_This world is full of wonders and treasures that are just outside my reach, and if possible then I want to use these new powers to steal just a little piece of that great pie. There's no need to need to think too hard about my motivations. I just want to live life freely._

Damien had decided that it would do no good to be conflicted with himself, as long as he could live with no regrets and have a fulfilled life, then there was no problem. After all, isn't that what all people want? To live with freedom?

Damien closed his eyes and let himself rest, he had a lot of work to do before he was ready to steal the Bialya Crown Jewel.

* * *

**AN: Thanks so much for the suggestion that everyone gave me, I consider them all when I write. I usually only write research papers so writing something like this has been a lot of fun, if you catch any errors please let me know, I'll try to correct them as soon as I have time. Thanks for reading, it means a lot! (also thanks to Magnussen Osbourne for pointing out that I missed the DEF stat, it's been a small challenge for me to keep track of the stats and the skills, I have it on a notepad now so hopefully I get it down).**


	3. Course of Action

**Disclaimer: I don't own DC Comics.**

**Chapter Three: Course of Action**

* * *

The relaxing feeling of your body being completely refreshed in the morning was still something Damien was having a difficult time getting used to, perhaps he never would; his body's mental state had been conditioned from bad sleeping habits for too long. Still, he got up and allowed his body to settle into the acute wonderful sensation, he had other things to worry about. Namely, what to do with the stolen jewelry, the cash had already been placed into the system, but the actual goods were in his inventory. He would have to find a way to convert those physical objects into cold hard cash, although several ideas popped into his head, he placed them in the back seat. There were other pressing matters that could be settled right now, a hazy memory of right before he fell asleep popped into his head.

_I leveled up, and there was a mystery box thing, is that because I reached level 20?_

Thinking about his status brought up the box of information he was already growing accustomed to seeing, his attributes had been raised by the level up, and even he got a small feeling of anxiety at seeing his money. Looking at the number which was now over 7,000, he felt a bit of anxiety, it stemmed from the thought of making money so easily. Doubts of what he was doing sprung to life in his head but were quickly suppressed by an overwhelming force.

The more important thing, however, was the small box that was glowing to the side, it reminded him of a minimized window in a computer, he pressed his finger on it and was greeted by a new prompt.

**Minor Mystery Box unlocked!**

The moment he was done reading the message, a grey stone cube materialized on his palm, it held intricate designs all over each face with a faint blue light shining through each pattern. Slowly gripping the surprisingly heavy box, he realized that the light was pulsing ever so slightly, as if it was calling for him. With his empty hand, he reached out and touched one of the faces of the small cube, the electricity that ran through his finger was more than enough to jolt him out of his daze. The light, which up until this moment had been passive, began to grow in intensity as the box violently shake out of his vise grip. Despite his enhanced strength, he found himself only being able to hold on to it for a mere moment before it managed to escape his hand and floated directly in front of him.

The light quickly became so bright it was forcing Damien to shy his eyes away with his hands, but as suddenly as the change had occurred, it stopped. The bright spectacle was done, turning his eyes back to the floating box, he observed the stone turn into blue motes of light. They floated in the air and dissipated a few inches from their origin, the box was slowly giving way to show its core, another system prompt.

Feeling somewhat upset the Mystery Box when through so much trouble for basically something he was used to seeing already, he was expecting to find an item within, not a prompt.

**Congratulations! You have opened a minor Mystery Box!  
Please select your prize.**

**Lock Unlock: A consumable item that allows the user to open any door that has been locked through any means, either physical or electrical. (x5)**

**Triple Jump (Skil): Allows the user's feet to find footing anywhere twice after an initial jump. Extra jumps will nullify the user's momentum upon contact of fabricated footing.**

**$15,000.**

Looking at the three options the choices he could make and which ones were not the ones he should be thinking about doing became a little murky. The choice that was obviously not as good as the others was the money, sure he reasoned, that with that money he could do plenty for himself at the moment. He had just got done thinking that gaining $7,000 in one night was an impressive feat, and yet here he could more than double that amount with much more ease. But against the other options, the money just wasn't worth it. After all, a skill was something that could be used forever and might even save his life, it definitely was worth more than $15,000.

Discarding the money, the choices were narrowed to two. The Triple Jump skill or the Lock Unlock item. Unlike the skill, the item was consumable, and it would be gone in five uses. Normally something like that would not even be worth considering, but in his current context, it held merit. He had already accepted that the System spoke in absolutes, if it said something then it would work that way, which was exactly why this decision was difficult.

The item description said it would open any door, even if it was locked by placing an unmoveable item on the other side, the item would open the door, or regardless of the state of the art electronic security it was using to secure itself; it would open for him. Dealing in absolutes surely had its perks, this sort of item would be extremely helpful in his raid of the crown jewel, the question was, however, was it worth more than the alternative.

Damien liked to think himself to have more common sense than the average person, he wasn't conceited or anything close to that matter, but he often saw people make dumb decisions for instant gratification. Spending money on expensive things that would be gone tomorrow when the money could be better spent and bring a return, people would always choose the option that would give them the most now as opposed to later. The item would be extremely helpful for the coming week and a half, but it would only prove detrimental for his future. If he jumped to the big leagues with the crutch that was the easy to use item, he would not be getting better, not to mention that the skill would continue to be useful even after five uses. It was a hard decision, but he made up his mind and made his selection.

**You have selected the Triple Jump skill! Congratulations!**

The feeling of something entering his body as the skill was learned was somewhat fulfilling, he got up from his bed and started about his day. He still needed to get his daily quest done, so he didn't waste any time and got right into that.

_I need more time practicing, last night was perfect. If those guys hadn't shown up I surely would have gotten out of there with no issue, but thinking back on it maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. I did get XP out of them, and a decent chunk of it too._

With that new mentality set in, he braced himself for the danger he would have to place himself in if he wanted to get better really quickly. There was no other method other than jumping into the crucible that was real-life experience.

_I am going to be so screwed if I mess this up._

Looking out from his small window into the next building was never something that he would find informative or even a pretty sight, it was just a view of a red brick wall, but it did serve a single purpose; it showed the weather. The small white flakes that were floating down gently in the wind explained the small chill he felt in his bones. Winter in Gotham was coming, and with it, his favorite weather, snow.

It was a beautiful thing he thought, a white blanket that covered the dirt and filth of Gotham city, even if it was just temporary and easily removed, it still was nice to have his brain forget about the city for a subconscious moment.

_I should try that Triple Jump I guess._

**\- Triple Jump: Allows the user's feet to find footing anywhere twice after an initial jump. Extra jumps will nullify the user's momentum upon contact of fabricated footing (Passive).**

_Passive? That's great._

Knowing that if he could jump three times in a row, he would easily clear the ceiling over him, to prevent that he decided to do kiddy jumps that barely lifted him off the ground. He wanted to know exactly how the ability worked before he tried it live, or rather needed to know.

Giving a little force to the floor below him, his body was displaced a few inches of the ground, feeling the strength of his push propel him upwards he attempted to once again push off the air but found nothing happen. It was only once the force of his initial jump ceased to exist against the overwhelming force that was the Earth's gravity that his efforts were rewarded with a result. The moment that gravity took over and pushed him down, he felt the air below his feet solidify. It was a weird thing, it wasn't like standing on the ground or even on anything, after all, there was nothing below him; but still, the System cared little for what reality imposed, it was not restrained by it. Damien jumped off nothing.

_It's just as described, this should help me move around much easier, I guess life really is a game… Now does the momentum nullification work in my favor or against it? Oh, I get it…_

Realizing how he might be able to use the Triple Jump skill more effectively, Damien starts to plan his next move regarding the quest. If possible, he'd like to focus on this subject completely, but he still had the obligation to school. He couldn't just miss classes for over a week without anyone realizing, he would have to juggle both matters, still, he placed a little more emphasis on thinking about how to steal the $1,000,000. Failing to do that would result in whatever System Rejection was, doing bad in a class would definitely not be as bad as what the alternative was.

* * *

"Is that another one of them?" a voice spoke from within a dark room.

"Yeah, this is the seventh one this week, and its only Friday," came a response shortly afterward. The two figures stood in front of several large monitors that were producing a plethora of information, from 911 calls to live police reports.

"The same MO?"

The teen that sat in a large leather chair spoke as he read the latest police report, "Similar enough, method of breaking in relies on subtlety, no signs of forced entry, cameras have been disabled, and there have been no witnesses aside from the perpetrator that was caught in the scene of the crime on Gotham Star Pawn Shop. He was concussed and was only able to briefly see the real thief so his testimony is questionable, but what is certain is that someone beat him and his gang before they made off with the merchandise and the safe money."

He continued to explain the situation to the red-haired teen whose face was concealed by a bat-themed cowl, "That alone would not be important to investigate so thoroughly, but subsequently, similar types of robberies have been happening daily since, the culprit is robbing these places with great care not to get noticed. Considering most of Gotham's underbelly likes to go in guns blazing when they steal, this is very unusual; the lack of a calling card is also worrying."

Gotham's villains were infamous for wanting fame or recognition for their evil deeds, if something was done by anyone, even the small little-league gangs, you could be sure a calling card would be left behind.

"And you think these are all being done by the same person? There is no correlation in the targets you know?" argued the red-haired teen.

"True, and maybe this is just my intuition, but I think it is the same person. I can't explain it, but I'm sure of it."

A sigh escaped from behind him, "Well Batman did train you, I suppose you could have some merit to your conclusions, but what of it? We just said that there is no pattern for each robbery, how will you catch this thief? The only hope you have is if you stumble upon them during the act while you are out in patrol, considering the size of our patrol routes that is very unlikely."

The dark-haired teen sitting in from of the monitors smirked at her rebuttal, "Well I did say that there is no pattern regarding the targets of theft, but I didn't say that there is no pattern at all."

The confusion on the girl's face was apparent, so the domino mask-wearing teen decided to explain, "If you see the thief's MO, it is very easy to see the similarities between them and Catwoman; sneaking and escaping with their prize without being noticed. But there is a big difference between the two, Catwoman only steals extravagant and ludicrously expensive things, this guy has only been stealing from places with little overall profit and low security."

The implication settled in the girl's expression, she was starting to understand what he was trying to explain to her, "So if you could say that is was likely this thief is new in town, his targets start to share a similar trend; low security. I think this guy is using easy targets to practice his way up the ladder, it's not a fool-proof theory, but I think I am probably right."

The thought process was solid, but even to his own self-admittance, it wasn't undeniable, so her doubts remained, "Even if you are right, that sort of profile fits more than half of the locations in Gotham, you couldn't keep an eye on all these."

"Yes, but there is another thing, every target so far has not been a small business owner, and those that were had been publicly shamed for their preying tactics like the pawnshop. I think using these parameters, the Batcomputer could narrow the next target by a large margin. So far each crime has taken place between the hours of 1 A.M. and 3 A.M., we might be able to catch this guy tonight."

Seeing how much thinking the boy had placed into the matter, she was hard-pressed to argue any further, "You really thought it all out, honestly I am surprised. Why so much interest in this guy anyway? He looks pretty small time to me."

A silence filled the large dark room, the boy seemed to be in deep thought, "I must be talking a lot about intuition but something is off about this guy, I get the feeling that if I don't catch him now… He will grow into a huge problem later, you know?"

The girl stared at him like he was speaking nonsense, "Well, if you feel that strongly about it… I guess I can help you catch them."

"Perfect! Now let me explain why this thief is a problem in how he steals. In order to steal without being noticed like he has, you need one of two things: incredible skills or weeks of surveillance. The problem is that this thief doesn't have the former, otherwise he wouldn't be targeting small prizes, and the problem with the second one is that it would be impossible to pull that off every day, you need weeks for each target. The culprit must have a method of gathering lots of information in a short amount of time, hours at the very least."

The talk of ambushes and possible next targets went on for a few more minutes, slowly, a course of action was formed.

* * *

Damien looked down from where he stood, twenty stories separated him from the cold hard concrete. Across the street from the building he was on, he could spot tonight's target. The jewelry store was considerably much smaller than the high-rise building he was on, truthfully he had no reason to be up there, but a secret joy of his had brought him to the incredible height.

He had initially tested it with smaller more non-lethal heights, but after a few tests with those the experience had grown stale, and soon larger and larger buildings were attempted.

Standing over the edge of the ledge, Damien gave himself a small hop off the building. The strong wind that immediately assaulted his face was refreshing, the way his gut sank as he approached the ground faster and faster with each moment, the silence as the city was drowned out by the gust in his ears; it was all perfect.

If this progressed anymore, he would have to be scraped off the pavement in the morning when the city would be forced to clean his dead body. Despite the situation he was in, not a shred of fear was visible in his half-hidden face. In fact, if one was able to see his mouth, they would only be greeted by a wicked smile. The ground was mere feet from him.

Just as his feet were a few inches from meeting the ground, he jumped. Instantly the momentum that was gathered from the drop was dispelled, the oppressive force that would have him become paste was gone, nullified completely.

His jump shot him upward, through this week's activities he had grown stronger and it showed in his agility, he easily jumped ten feet from the platform that had been created, another jump and he was across the street and on the targeted roof.

Just as he had predicted, the skill Triple Jump would stop him from taking damage from a fall if he jumped just before hitting the ground, it was starting to prove to be more useful than what he initially thought it to be.

A quick look at his status was all he needed to gain the confidence to keep moving with his plan.

**Gamer Status:**

**Select an item to view additional information.**

**Name: Damien White**

**Title: The Gamer  
Age: 16  
Gender: Male  
Level (D): 29  
Debuff: Mental Corruption X105**

**HP: 96  
SP: 71  
MP: 31(36)  
Magic: E31  
STR: D56(D78)  
DEF: D46(D51)  
AGI: D71(D96)  
INT: D+116(D+136)  
WIS: D86(91)  
CHAR: B  
LCK: B  
Points: 18  
Money: $16,568**

_This should be easy, just like every other time. Don't forget, if you run into trouble, use those skill points wisely. You got this!_

Damien headed into his next practicing target for the week.

* * *

**AN: That was a hot minute between the last update, sorry! It was partially because I lost the draft for this chapter (I meant to get this out the last week of January), but it was mainly because I am working on my own book. The website I am publishing it on needs me to update daily to even get a few readers to notice it so I have been writing non-stop to get those out every day, naturally, I had little time to work on this (Hence the short chapter length). My original fiction story is also a "Gamer" story, which I found out to be actually called "LitRPG" stories, who knew? Anyway, thanks for the reviews! I read them all and take them into serious consideration, if you got any suggestions, let me know. Thanks for reading!**

**EDIT: Answered some reviews.**

**Jestersky98: He knows its there and that it's increasing, but he doesn't really have the means to stop it. Or even know what it is doing for that matter.**

**Magnussen osbourne: It's called Anathum: Quest for the End, not really much like this story other than the fact that it's a gamer story, so yeah. I post it on Royal Road, lots of cool stories there!**

**Recieve the Wind: The other thieves had the jewelry, he didn't want to leave without it. Regarding heroes, I don't think that this character is a dark or white one, he definitely won't be working with them, or even being friends with them, but don't expect him to stabby-stabby with them either. As for the harem stuff, I don't have a pairing and I am not great at writing romance so yeah, we'll see :D!**

**SirMaou: I don't have a name yet, if someone suggests one that I think is good I'll steal it (But i'll give credit)(Maybe)**

**Lq840i: He'll get to some of the stuff you mentioned.**

**Other than that, I will try to update more often, but no promises!**


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